This volume is the outcome of a World Bank–CEPR conference held at the World Bank, Washington DC, on 2–3 April 1992. Partial funding for the conference was provided by the Research Administration of the World Bank under RPO 677-12. The support is gratefully acknowledged. We owe special thanks to Ghislaine Bayard, Karla Cabana and Rebecca Sugui for a flawless administration of the conference. The large number of congratulatory messages we received after the conference were testimony to the superb organisation they carried out and to their untiring contribution to activities related to the production of the volume on the Western side of the Atlantic.

The editing, coordination and production of the volume have been carried out on the Eastern side of the Atlantic at CEPR. David Guthrie and Kate Millward were most effective at ensuring that authors (including the usually delinquent editors) delivered their manuscripts and revisions on time. Barbara Docherty, as Production Editor, was swift and thorough in editing the manuscripts.

Finally, we wish to thank Francis Ng of the World Bank for his superb statistical assistance on a number of chapters in the volume.